The Cactus Correspondent
Vipers Evolution. 4 – 1 One-touchables
Scorers: Mohd Shahril Nasron (16’)
Royston Poh (27’)
Mohd Sharil Rahaman (51’)
opposition own goal (57’)
Meridian JC – Vipers Evolution captain Mohd Sharil Rahaman played a starring role for his team, scoring a goal and two assists as Vipers made it four consecutive wins. Shahril broke the deadlock for Vipers Evo when he played onto a good through ball from striker Fang Yi on 16 minutes.
Royston then added his fourth ESPZEN league goal this season while One-Touchables pulled a goal back just before the half-time break, but it proved to be a mountain to climb as ‘Baby’ scored Vipers’ third and an own goal to make it 4-1.
Coming on the back of three consecutive wins the Vipers were on a good roll. Unlike the previous meeting where One-touchables secured a late come-back, our opponents have been suffering in recent times with a 7-0 thrashing by rivals R.A.B just 3 weeks again highlighting their current plight.
It took Shahril talisman 15 minutes to open the scoring after good team work, and another 10 minutes doubling the tally. Despite a good rally that showed fighting spirit One-touchables could not come back this time – especially leading by their inspirational captain Mohd Sharil Rahaman.
Indeed, just 5 minutes after the break the match was dead and buried. ‘Baby’ Sharil added the third, and there was even time for him to add to his assists column. The One-touchables came back trying to salvage the point but an own goal by the opposition defender made things even worse. As it turns out, Vipers Evolution completed their turnaround in the start of their season as they continued marching up the table.
The team started with Kelvyn in goal, Fadzli, Iskanda, Stephen and Russell in defense. Midfield consists of Eric and Tuan, with Idung and Naufal on the wings. Fang Yi makes a return from injury to partner the red hot Royston up front.
The last time the two teams meet, Evo took the lead twice before school boys’ error gifted OT two goals in the last 5 minute to win the game 3-2. This time out, Evo was all out to set the record straight. The game was quite even in the starting stages when both teams were probing to test out each other strength and weaknesses. The game exploded into life at the 16th min, when Fang Yi latches on to a pass down the right flank. He squares the ball back into the penalty box only to see the ball flashes across the goal with nobody getting a touch. Idung picked up the ball on the other end, and put in a left footed cross that some how sails over the keeper and into the far corner of the net. 1-0 to Evo!
The lead lasted only for 5min, however, as some quick one touch passing saw OT cut through the center of Evo midfield. OT striker managed to spring the offside trap and places the ball beyond Kelvyn’s hand into the bottom left corner. The goal, however, woke Evo up.
Baby, Fang Yi and Royston especially were devastating on the right. One such movement saw the three of them combined with Royston getting on the end of Fang Yi cut back to put Evo back into the lead. The same three musketeers almost created another carbon copy goal for Evo just before half time, only for Royston’s effort to be ruled out for offside. Just how a cut back can be considered offside, only the man in black will know.
Evo carry over the first half form into the second half, and were 2 goals up in just 12min of the restart. This time, Royston was the provider as a quick counter attack saw him treading the ball through two defenders to set up Baby for a one on one with the OT keeper. The Evo captain did not needed to be asked twice and duly took his chance well for a goal he richly deserved. The game was made safe 3 minutes later, with Evo perhaps getting a huge slice of luck for their fourth goal of the match. Baby’s shot from outside the box looks like it was going well wide to the right, until it took a big deflection off the back of a OT defender, totally wrong footed the keeper, and bounce into the bottom left corner of the net. Evo ended the game the stronger of the two, and would had won even more but with Royston and Fang Yi shooting wide from good chances. The game ended 4-1 with Evo winning four games in a roll.
*Vipers Evolution man-of-the-match: Mohd Sharil Abdul Rahaman – inspired the team and is a certainty for one of the candidates for the end-of-season’s awards.
Starting Line-up
30. Kelvyn Lee
21. Russell Lee
14. Stephen Lee
5. Fadzli
26. Iskandar
9. Hung Tuan
27. Eric Lim
17. Naufal Baharudin
10. Mohd Shahril (c)
4. Royston Poh
18. Lu Fang Yi
Substitutions
22. Richard Lee
8. Mohd Sharil Rahaman